The Doctor Dances (TV story)
The Doctor Dances 'is the tenth episode of the first series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Moffat and featured Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper with Rose Tyler with John Barrowman as Jack Harkness. Overview To be added Synopsis The Child's plague spreads throughout Wartime London with it's zombie army on the march. The Doctor and Rose form an alliance with Captain Jack, but find themselves trapped in the abandoned hospital. The answer lies at the bombsite, but time is running out. Plot Trapped and pinned by a small army of gas mask toting zombies, the Doctor suddenly orders the army to 'go to your room' in the fashion of the angered parent. Getting more and more vocal, the army slowly stands down and returns to their beds; the Doctor is glad that gambit worked: "Those would've been terrible last words". Back in the Lloyd household, the Child, Nancy's little brother Jamie, also retreats and leaves. Nancy watches him off, before dropping to the floor in tears. In the hospital ward, the Doctor continues to insist that the crash of Jack's con is what caused the outbreak and he leads him and Rose up to where Dr. Constantine had suggested. Eventually, the all-clear signal goes off and they head upstairs. Nancy tries to leave the Lloyds' house, but she's caught and dragged back inside for theft. Entering the first victim's room, using Jack's sonic blaster, or 'Squareness gun' as Rose calls it, they find it in complete disarray. Looking around, they find the walls and floors covered with the child's drawings. The Doctor starts a tape of Dr. Constantine talking to the child when all he does is ask for his mummy, over and over again. Meanwhile, Mr. Lloyd calls the police on Nancy, but she isn't intimidated by him and his posturing; she tells him that half the street thinks Mrs. Lloyd is having an affair with the butcher, Mr. Havastock, but she is aware that he is. She demands some wire cutters and a torch for her mission to the bomb site and departs, leaving Mr Lloyd in shock. While the Doctor thinks, he realises that the child had to have been affected and given incredible power by whatever crashed; he is so consumed in thought that he fails to notice that the tape has run out and the child is still talking. They all turn to see the child looking at them from behind. The Doctor, having sneakily switched Jack's sonic blaster with a banana, blasts a hole in the wall, through which they escape and seal up behind them. Nevertheless, the child manages to break through the wall with virtually no effort, forcing them to run. As they make up the corridor, they are trapped both ways by gas mask zombies. Before they can be caught, however, Rose blasts a hole in the floor and they fall into a lower ward, which is also filled with them. Sealing themselves in a storeroom with no obvious way out, Rose is shocked when Jack just vanishes. Elsewhere, Nancy finds the street urchins in hiding. She tells the eldest boy, Ernie, to look after everybody when she goes to the bombsite. Ernie is shocked, worried that the child might get her and come after them, but she insists that the child is only after her, pointing out that another boy, Jim is sat right beside him, so the typewriter is working itself. After she leaves, Ernie picks up the piece of the paper she took from the typewriter and it reads 'ARE YOU MY MUMMY?' repeatedly. Back in the storeroom, Jack contacts the others using a radio the same way that the child does. While the Doctor tries to work out an escape, Rose turns up the music on the radio and insist the Doctor prove that he can 'dance' as he claims. In the middle of their conversation, Jack teleports them aboard his ship without their notice. The nanogenes on the ship, which the Doctor notes is also a Chula ship like what Jack threw at them, repairs a burn the Doctor received on his hand when the TARDIS landed. After this, they head toward the crash site. Meanwhile, Nancy makes her way to the bomb site and sneaks past the soldiers guarding it. Breaking inside, she tries to get a look at the shell when the perimeter guards spot and apprehend her. Ranking officer Algy takes her to a hut and chain her up next to an ill soldier named Jenkins, whom Nancy immediately knows is going to change soon. She pleads with Algy to chain her up someplace else, but they just dismiss her and leave. She tries pleading with Jenkins next who just takes her to be crazed. Nancy starts to panic and tries to get Jenkins to remember his family but it makes no difference; he soon starts screaming 'mummy' and starts to transform. The Doctor, Rose and Jack arrive at the crash site and Jack goes to distract Algy so the others can get inside. However, Algy starts asking 'Are you my mummy?' and he himself transforms. Seeing that the effect is becoming airborne, the Doctor claims that there's only hours left before everybody succumbs when he hears Nancy singing from inside the hut. Sneaking inside, Nancy sings a song to keep the Jenkins zombie asleep and the Doctor frees her with his sonic screwdriver. Jack shows the Doctor the ship; when he tries to open it, an alarm goes off summoning all the zombies, the soldiers of the machine to it. While they head to the bombsite, Jack seals the gate and Rose and Nancy fix the barbed wire fence with the sonic. While doing this, Rose admits to Nancy that she's from the future and quietly confides in her that the Nazis don't win the war. After opening the ship, the Doctor pieces together everything that's caused the problem. Despite the appearance of being empty, the craft contained nanogenes, enough to rebuild a whole species, but having never seen a human before, they took the first specimen they found, the dead child, assumed all humans were supposed to appear like that and went off to 'repair' all other humans to fit that image. Jack is horrified by this revelation and swears he wasn't aware. Nancy spots the army coming, having been summoned by the ship as a protocol. With no idea what to do, the Doctor relents and Nancy sobs, claiming that all the events are all her fault. Aware that a bomb is due to drop on that exact site in mere minutes, Jack vanishes back to his ship. The Doctor realises why Nancy claims responsibility, she wasn't Jamie's brother, but his mother. He advises her to tell him the truth and she complies but there isn't enough of Jamie left in the child to understand. Nancy pulls him into an embrace when they are swarmed by nanogenes. The swarm quickly disperses and the Doctor is able to joyously remove the mask from Jamie's face; the nanogenes corrected their error by identifying Nancy as the parent DNA of Jamie. At that point, the bomb falls, but Jack manages to catch it and place it in stasis with the tractor beam and the Doctor tells him that it's not needed anymore and that he should dispose of it. Calling them back, the Doctor sends them to repair everybody else and they restore everybody to normal as well as healing them of all their ailments. After sending Nancy and Jamie to Dr. Constantine of help and ensuring the nanogenes repair their mess and shut themselves down, the Doctor and Rose return to the TARDIS, but Rose asks why Jack said goodbye to them. Deep in space, the ship informs Jack that there's no way to dispose of the bomb without killing him so he decides to enjoy one last drink before he explodes. He then swings the chair around to see the TARDIS, doors open, in the back on the ship and rushes inside. Rose attempts to teach the Doctor a proper dancing technique in the control room. After formally accepting Jack on the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose proceed to actually have a proper old-style dance around the console. Cast * Doctor Who - Christopher Eccleston * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper * The Child - Albert Valentine * Nancy - Florence Hoath * Jack - John Barrowman * Timothy Lloyd - Luke Perry * Mr Lloyd - Damian Samuels * Mrs Lloyd - Cheryl Fergison * Jim - Joseph Tremain * Ernie - Jordan Murphy * Algy - Robert Hands * Jenkins - Martin Hodgson * Dr Constantine - Richard Wilson * Mrs Harcourt - Vilma Hollingbery * Voice of The Empty Child - Noah Johnson * Computer Voice - Dian Perry Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Doctor Dances'' page on '''Doctor Who Website